Left: Mamadi Tambajang (Sandy Springs Police Department). Right: Amber Kelly (JP Holley Funeral Home).
A Georgia resident will live out his remaining years in prison for the brutal murder of his girlfriend, having violently beaten and stomped her, then delayed notifying authorities for over a day. This tragic incident has become a chilling reminder of unchecked domestic violence.
Mamadi Tambajang was found guilty of murdering 31-year-old Amber Kelly in their shared Sandy Springs apartment. He received a life sentence, with the possibility of parole only after serving 50 years, as confirmed by local law enforcement.
The grim sequence of events unfolded on May 15, 2024, when Tambajang arrived at the Sandy Springs Police Department to confess. He admitted to harming Kelly and requested a welfare check, unsure if she was still alive. Officers arrived at the apartment only to discover Kelly had been brutally beaten to death.
“The crime scene was horrific,” described Asia Baysah, Fulton County’s deputy district attorney, in an interview with local ABC affiliate WSB. She elaborated on the extent of the violence, stating, “She suffered over 25 different blunt force traumas to her body.”
This was not Tambajang’s first encounter with the law regarding domestic violence. At the time of Kelly’s murder, he had been involved in two other cases for assaulting her. A year prior, Kelly had contacted the police, pleading for help.
“He’s a violent person, and he threatened to murder me twice this week,” Kelly’s voice echoed in a distressing call obtained by WSB. Her words now serve as a haunting testament to the dangers she faced.
Family told the outlet that it repeatedly advised Kelly to leave Tambajang, but she believed he could be a good man. The abuse continued and eventually led to her death.
Prosecutors said that Tambajang claimed he simply “snapped.”
“He said that he was provoked to inflict those injuries upon Amber,” Fulton County Assistant District Attorney Jazmin Dilligard said in an interview with WSB.
Cops believe the suspect murdered Kelly a day or two before he turned himself in. After he killed her, he reportedly drove to his mother’s house in South Carolina before he drove to Sandy Springs police and expressed concern about Kelly’s well-being.
“It was fake. If he was truly concerned about her, he would have called 911,” said Dilligard. “He did everything but seek medical treatment.”
Kelly’s mother Sharon Henderson recalled when cops knocked on her door to alert her of her daughter’s death.
“I felt like my heart stopped beating the moment I found out that my baby was no longer here with us,” she told WSB.
